1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to packaging for toy balloons.
2. Description of the Related Art
Substantial numbers of toy balloons are purchased at public events, novelty shops, stores selling greeting cards and similar items and similar commercial enterprises. Typically, the toy balloons are one of a wide variety of products offered for sale in these establishments, and accordingly, there may be little or no opportunity for store personnel to become acquainted with the stockkeeping units and other identifying indicia provided by balloon manufacturers for the trade. There is an ever-increasing variety of toy balloon products. For example, toy balloons are typically imprinted with widely varying artwork, lettering and, on occasion, special legends. Further, toy balloons bearing the same artwork and lettering are offered in a number of different sizes.
Merchandise inventory and stockkeeping systems employed today typically use text or verbal description to identify the commercial product. While these systems have been immediately accepted for many different products, significant difficulties have been encountered in the field of toy balloon merchandising, where different artwork (e.g., fanciful illustrations of animals) may deal with a common theme for which verbal descriptions are at best confusing, and at worst are identical or otherwise nondistinguishing. For example, a verbal description such as "duck carrying Happy Birthday sign" may not be meaningful to store personnel who are only casually familiar with the toy balloons currently carried by the store. As a result, the toy balloons are usually taken out of stock and presented to a potential customer to identify the product in an effort to "close the sale." All but the smallest size balloons are shipped folded and are oftentimes inventoried in a store as a stack resembling a stack of folded sheets of film. For a customer who might want to examine several different balloon designs, the stack of folded balloons must be examined for duplicates, with balloons having the desired design, and the desired size, being extracted from the pile. Very often, this is laborious and time-consuming and improvements have been sought.
Toy balloons made of a metalized film are becoming increasingly popular. These types of balloons are often filled with a gas which is "lighter than air", with the result that the balloons, when released, tend to ascend at a rate such that the balloon quickly passes beyond a person's grasp. In an effort to accommodate users who may not be familiar with this phenomenon, sellers of toy balloons may tie a string or ribbon to the balloon as a convenient tether. Despite these precautions, a momentary lapse of attention can result in loss of the toy balloon. Accordingly, to date, weights have been manufactured and distributed separately from the toy balloons, for eventual use therewith. These weights are typically comprised of one or more layers of paperboard material shaped in the form of a rectangular tab of sufficient mass so as to counterbalance the buoyancy of the balloon. These weights are typically connected to the balloon by a ribbon or string tether.